The "DC Cocktail Party Circuit" is a Total Myth

Um, well, I mean, it totally exists, and Trump supporters are purposely excluded so that NeverTrumpers and liberal #Resistance members can share Appletinis and scheme together, but I mean, obviously, all of those populist extremists who have been saying that the left and nominal right get together after drinks to badmouth and plot Gay Ops against actual conservatives are just liars, is all they are.

Even if, technically, they're right, as this article by archliberal and #MeToo accused Ryan Lizza discloses.

After noting that during the Bush years, liberals and Republicans had comingled over whiskey...

The Trump era is different. Washington feels more like occupied territory, and every social interaction is fraught with ideological and even moral questions about whether it is appropriate to mingle with people who defend the indefensible: lying, attacking reporters as enemies of the people, putting children in cages, assisting in the cover-up of the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Take Juleanna Glover, one of the city's most well-known hostesses. Her home has become a sort of oasis where the list is scrupulously scrubbed of most Trump guests. And Glover is no left-winger; she worked for John Ashcroft and Dick Cheney. Indeed, her parties these days are often the center of D. C.'s #NeverTrump conservative resistance, as was the case at a book party she threw for Rick Wilson, the Republican consultant who recently published the best seller Everything Trump Touches Dies. "We can call them the uncontaminated," Glover joked.

Was she joking?

Much is said in the form of joke that is seriously intended. It's often how people express taboo ideas in a socially-accepted manner.

"Pulling together the like-minded makes people hopeful. You're aggregating the intellectually disciplined and principled. But it's also deeply siloing."

Well, as long as Guy Benson and the crew from Free Beacon can get their invites, I'm happy.

...

When other prominent hosts have welcomed senior Trump officials to their table, there has sometimes been a backlash. David Bradley, chairman of Atlantic Media, which co-owns The Atlantic, hosts a steady stream of D. C. soirees for the powerful. He was met with criticism when Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump showed up at a dinner he was hosting during the White House Correspondents' Association weekend last spring. Bradley believes introducing journalists to politicians and officials is an important part of his job but concedes there is a "moral dimension" when including "controversial, even offensive" guests.

..

Not everyone associated with the administration is unwelcome. D. C. hosts have developed a sliding scale of tolerance. One hostess put it this way: "My benchmark is, Are they credentialed? Would they be a candidate for a senior position in any other White House?" (The former secretary of defense Jim Mattis, a retired Marine Corps general, is a prominent example of someone in that category.) But this hostess also noted that some officials who initially pass that test might also come to be seen as toxic....

You'll be happy to hear that Michelle Fields has succeeded in her physical rehabilitation and can now use her prosthetic arm for feats of precision swordplay. Her favorite party trick is striking the stopper off a bottle of champagne using a scimitar given to her granpapa by the Sultan of Brunei.

Jamie Weinstein and Michelle Fields, married right-of-center political commentators (he hosts a National Review podcast, and she is a former reporter for Breitbart and the Daily Caller), have created one of the few such salons. Known as the Churchill Tommy Gun Society, after a large portrait hanging in their dining room of the former prime minister holding that weapon, the parties bring together a group of around ten journalists, who are usually on the younger side, and a special guest for off-the-­record drinks and steaks at the couple’s Ritz-­Carlton penthouse in the West End, on the edge of Georgetown. A recent Churchill dinner that I attended was so secret that even the name of the special guest was off the record. The atmosphere was cordial, but the questioning was intense and personal. Nielsen, Carlson, Mark Cuban, Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, and Arkansas senator Tom Cotton have all been featured guests. The social scene has gone underground in D. C. because of all the protests," Weinstein noted. "We may be the one place in town where people from all over the ideological spectrum come dine together."

But anyway, all of those populist extremists who tell you that a lot TV Make-Pretend Conservatives spend most of their social time with liberals on the DC Cocktail Circuits -- crazy hobbit Tea Party wackadoos.

Conservatives can get into these parties -- if they're credentialed enough.

See? No elitism here!

Great: I had actually heard of the Weinstein/Field "salons" before, but I had forgotten where.

secret asian man reminds me: Michelle Fields was shopping a reality tv show which would film and present her wonderful dinner parties.

A television show would change all of that, of course. Sources familiar with the parties confirm that a production company has already filmed two dinners, with Senator Chris Murphy from Connecticut and Congressman Mark Sanford from South Carolina. Nuzzi from New York mag was among the regular guests. And the interview-style show is being pitched to mainstream networks rather than cable news channels. The dinners won’t be off-the-record anymore, but it's easy to see how the promise of a home audience will lure "bigger and better guests" to the dinner table.

Exit question, as suggested by a commenter:

Was Pol Pot right? Discuss.

posted by Ace of Spades at 02:08 PM

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